Cherrywood | Jock Serong | $34.99 | Harper Collins
This is a unique novel; a magical realism marked with comprehensive historicity is not exactly a prolific genre. But, Serong does it so well! The novel comprises two story lines, one of a rich Scottish industrialist in 1916 moving to Melbourne to source the mystic ‘Cherrywood’, and the other a frustrated Melbournian lawyer who visits a curious pub of the same name in 93. As these two story lines merge, the boundaries of real and magic and past and present become thinner and thinner. It explores love, loss and the closeness of the past with stunning writing. - Angus
The Wedding Forecast | Nina Kenwood | $34.99 | Text Publishing
Anna was never going to have an easy time at her best friend’s wedding. She’s the bridesmaid; her ex is a groomsman. She needs a distraction, and Patrick, the photographer, just might be the solution. Laugh-out-loud funny with chemistry that jumps off the page, The Wedding Forecast is the feel-good rom-com of this summer.
Juice | Tim Winton | $49.99 | Penguin
Two fugitives, a man and a child, drive overnight across the desert. As dawn breaks, they roll into an abandoned mine site, exhausted and desperate. This is the most promising place they’ve seen; but the problem is, they’re not alone. Juice is a journey of survival, and of how to maintain humanity as the world falls into barbarism, from an iconic writer.
Wing | Nikki Gemmell | $34.99 | Harper Collins
Four students from an elite girls’ school go missing on a camping trip into the bush. Eventually, separated and traumatised, the four girls re-appear. But the male teacher sent to look for them does not; and the girls aren’t talking.
The Thinning | Inga Simpson | $32.99 | Hachette
Our protagonist, Fin, grew up near an observatory in Canberra, absorbing her parents’ knowledge of telescopes and planets. Now, Fin and her mother live with a band of outsiders deep off the grid, and we’re thrown into an eerie, almost-familiar landscape. The world of The Thinning is shaped by species extinctions and environmental threats, and Fin finds herself working with unlikely allies to help restore the natural world. Simpson has contributed a powerful and distinctive take on the near-future cli-fi form, with remarkably mellifluous prose and a ripping pace. - Leona
In The Margins | Gail Holmes | $34.99 | Ultimo Press
England, 1647. As civil war gives way to strict Puritanism, Frances is charged with enforcing religious compliance and takes increasingly bold steps to help the women of the parish. A testament to the way literature can set us free when the world around us is covered in darkness.
The Kingdom of Dust | David Dyer | $34.99 | Penguin
Beam of Light | John Kinsella | $32.99 | Transit Lounge
A haunting collection of short stories ranging in location from Ireland to Germany to Greece to the Australian countryside threatened by catastrophic heat, land clearing, housing estates and strip malls. Kinsella’s characters sear the consciousness and reveal uncanny truths.
I think that those of us who weren’t around to witness the first moon landing have a tendency to take that remarkable achievement for granted, and this novel is a powerful corrective to that. It re-contextualises the moon landing as an intensely personal story, foregrounding the immense courage of Neil & Buzz being the first human beings to walk on a celestial body, and the terror and uncertainty of their loved ones back on Earth. Heart wrenching and awe-inspiring. - Connor
Mural | Stephen Downes | $32.99 | Transit Lounge
Mural is a ‘confession’ by a psychopath known only as D. Held in a secure facility, his psychiatrist has him write down his thoughts, admissions, and anxieties. Revealed through the stories of other people’s lives and obsessions, Downes navigates the real and the imagined, traversing fact and fiction with a lively and deranged protagonist.
Rapture | Emily Maguire | $32.99 | Allen & Unwin
It brings me joy to see subversive women in the medieval church being written about, and Maguire has captured the history of the city Mainz perfectly! Please come and talk to me about women passing as men in ecclesiastical history, as I could talk for hours about both the subject and this book. - Lexie
The Deal | Alex Miller | $32.99 | Allen & Unwin
Aspiring writer and first-time father Andy takes a part-time teaching job to keep the wolves from the door. There he meets Lang, who charms him into an intriguing and dangerous relationship. Roped into a risky deal, Andy negotiates his own identity as an artist, facing up to the realities of the art market.
Chinese Postman | Brian Castro | $32.99 | Giramondo
Quin is in his mid-seventies, a migrant, thrice-divorced, one-time postman, now living in solitude in the Adelaide Hills. He falls into a letter exchange with Iryna Zarebina, a woman seeking refuge from the war in Ukraine. Their correspondence reinvigorates his enjoyment of language and sparks erudite thinking about ageing.
Molly | Rosalie Ham | $34.99 | Macmillan
It’s 1914 and Molly Dunnage wants to see change: at home, at work, and in underwear. Her corsetry business is starting to take off, thanks to some high-profile supporters, but as the clouds of war gather and an ominous figure starts lurking, Molly’s dreams start to falter. The prequel to The Dressmaker has arrived with aplomb.
Dusk | Robbie Arnott | $34.99 | Picador Dusk reads like poetry; the candescence and timbre of the writing is uniquely beautiful. In the wilds of Tasmania twins Iris and Floyd, are out of work out of money and homeless, so now they’re on the hunt for a killer; a killer puma known as Dusk. The images that Arnott evokes in his writing are haunting and beautiful; he has such a distinct style. - Robert
All the Bees in the Hollows | Lauren Keegan | $32.99 | Affirm Press
Marytè is a devoted beekeeper. She lives by the old rules: work with fellow beekeepers, be a good Christian and a good harvest will follow. But there is little help to be had from her eldest daughter who instead finds refuge in the ancient forest, where she finds a mutilated body and uncovers a honeycomb of lies and betrayal.
Diving, Falling | Kylie Mirmohamadi | $32.99 | Scribe
An elegant, exhilarating journey through grief, betrayal, and the intoxicating rediscovery of joy. Ripe with wickedly wry observations, unashamedly bold and sexy, it examines the calculations and sacrifices women make to keep the peace, escape their pasts, and find the agency.
Creation Lake | Rachel Kushner | $34.99 | Random House
Kushner’s latest and greatest offering rewards readers on multiple levels. A spy-for-hire infiltrates a collective of rural French eco-marxists suspected of plotting to sabotage the industrial destruction of an ancient groundwater source. A tantalising story and a fascinating discussion about leaving our modern world behind. - Ben
A Sunny Place for Shady People | Mariana Enriquez | $32.99 | Allen & Unwin
A neighbourhood nuisanced by ghosts, a family whose faces melt away, a haunting by a girl who dissolved in a water tank, a riverbank populated by birds that used to be women. Enriquez writes another twelve stories of contemporary life’s shadows.
The Empusium | Olga Tokarczuk | $34.99 | Text Publishing
The Empusium is an abounding treasure trove of ideas. A pastiche of Mann’s Magic Mountain, Tokarczuk’s protagonist is sent to a sanatorium steeped in mystery. The novel mocks famous ‘thinkers’ and their sexist ideas by exposing how utterly ridiculous they are, whilst also maintaining a scary, mysterious aura. A gendered, comedic and folk horror story that is more than worth the read. -
Angus
The Mighty Red | Louise Erdrich | $34.99 | Hachette
Gary thinks Kismet is the answer to his problems; Kismet can’t imagine her future. During a clumsy proposal, Kismet misses her chance to say ‘no’. Hugo has been in love with Kismet for years; now she’s marrying Gary, Hugo is determined to steal her back. The North Dakotan countryside watches ordinary people dream, love, and carry bitter secrets, underpinned by a story about the tattered bond with the earth, and about love in all of its absurdity and splendour.
The Last Dream | Pedro Almodóvar | $34.99 | Random House
Containing twelve stories from Almodóvar’s personal archive, written between the late sixties and the present day, this collection offers a tantalising glimpse into Almodóvar’s creative mind. An intimate and mischievous collection which reflects the themes of his cinematic work.
The Great When | Alan Moore | $32.99 | Bloomsbury
When Dennis comes into possession of a book that shouldn’t exist, a different, alternate London reveals itself in the same place as current London, – and with it a cast of characters each more unlikely and fantastical than the last. Long London is a city built from dreamscapes, fiction, and nightmares.
Rabbits | Hugo Rifkind | $32.99 | Polygon Tommo, the son of a famous author, has just moved to an elite Scottish boarding school. He is curiously included in his classmates’ hedonistic nights in the highlands. Fascination vanishes as Tommo becomes aware of sinister undercurrents to this world, confirmed by an apparently accidental shooting.
She’s Always Hungry | Eliza Clark | $32.99 | Allen & Unwin
There are some authors in the world where all I want is peer into their brains and find out exactly what is going on in there to create such disturbing books. Eliza Clark is one of them. Her skill with body horror is unparalleled. Coming with a trigger warning for every topic imaginable, She’s Always Hungry is a visceral and carnal exploration of womanhood, bodies, and the appetites we have, whether it be for perfection or food. Dipping into sci-fi but never straying from the disturbing, these stories left me feeling icky and unsettled, which let’s face it- is the real way I want a book to leave me. - Lexie
Tasmania | Paolo Girodano | $32.99 | Random House
After losing the future he imagined for himself, a writer sets out in search of connection and purpose at a tipping point with climate change and global conflict, in this breathtaking novel from the prize-winning author of The Solitude of Prime Numbers.
Gliff | Ali Smith | $34.99 | Penguin
Two children come home to find a line of wet red paint encircling their house. They don’t know what it means, only that it prohibits them from crossing the threshold. Gliff, the first of two new interconnected is a gently realised near future story, where a hostile state reduces people to algorithms. A story of steadfast and thoughtful resistance. - Leona
Intermezzo | Sally Rooney | $34.99 | Allen & Unwin
Despite being brothers, Peter and Ivan have little in common. In the wake of their father’s death, each brother tries to cope, leaning on their vices and their lovers. A moving story about grief and love from the global phenom Sally Rooney.
| Sarah Manguso | $39.99 | Picador
When Jane, an aspiring writer, meets filmmaker John, they both want the same things, but soon enough Jane finds her career falling by the wayside. A tour de force of wit and rage, telling the blistering story of a marriage as it burns to the ground, and of a woman rising inexorably from its ashes.
Playground | Richard Powers | $34.99 | Random House
A great cast of interconnected characters meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, marked for humanity’s next great adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out into the open sea. Powers explores that last wild place we have not colonised.
Think Again | Jacqueline Wilson | $34.99 | Random House
The first adult novel from my all-time favourite children’s author Jacqueline Wilson follows Ellie, Nadine, Magda and a whole cast of familar characters from The Girls series. A charming novel of growing up, adjusting to change and rethinking your life in your forties, Think Again is pure nostalgia for Wilson fans! - Steph
The Edge of the Alphabet | Janet Frame | $26.99 | Allen & Unwin
The Edge of the Alphabet is a piercing, startlingly strange work about identity, the postcolonial experience in New Zealand and the search for connection in a lonely world, published on the centenary of her birth.
The Hotel | Daisy Johnson | $34.99 | Random House
On entering The Hotel, different people react in different ways. To some it is familiar, to others a stranger. Many come out refreshed, longing to return. But a few are changed forever, haunted by their time there. And almost all those affected are women. A triumphant short story collection.
The Granddaughter | Bernhard Schlink | $34.99 | Hachette
At a youth festival in East Berlin, an unlikely young couple fall in love. In the bright spring days, anything seems possible for them - it is only many years later, after her death, that Kaspar discovers the price his wife paid to get to him in West Berlin. A great novel of German reunification.
A Magical Girl Retires | Seolyeon Park | $29.99 | Harper Collins
Twenty-nine, jobless, and drowning in debt, a millennial woman decides to end her troubles by jumping off Seoul’s Mapo Bridge. But her suicide attempt is interrupted by a girl dressed all in white. Ah Roa is a magical girl on a mission to find the greatest magical girl of all time. Is our protagonist that girl?
Marigold Mind Laundry | Jungeun Yun | $32.99 | Random House
After Jieun accidentally makes her parents vanish, she lives a million lives bereft in search of them.
Determined to heal others, she creates the Marigold Mind Laundry – a place that allows people’s pain to be transformed into stains before being washed away. An uplifting and moving read. - Carolina
The Black Orb | Ewhan Kim | $34.99 | Allen & Unwin
The City and Its Uncertain Walls | Haruki Murakami | $49.99 | Random House
When a young man’s girlfriend mysteriously vanishes, he pursues the imaginary city where her true self lives. He tracks her to a walled city and finds his beloved working in a dream library. But she has no memory of their life together in the other world and the lines between reality and fantasy start to blur.
Tongueless | Yee-Wa Lau | $34.99 | Allen & Unwin
Two secondary school Chinese language teachers in Hong Kong face betrayal, power imbalances, and rapid social change in the highly competitive workplace. A provocative contemporary Hong Kong noir, blending politics and personal rivalry.
One evening in downtown Seoul, a huge black orb appears out of nowhere and sucks the whole neighbour inside. This is a piercingly dark, surreal satire on mass panic, disaster response and modern masculinity.
Asa: The Girl Who Turned Into A Pair Of Chopsticks | Natsuko Imamura | $24.99 | Allen & Unwin
A collection of dark, surreal, and unsettling stories! Nami evades her classmates’ playground game of acorn-throwing. Happy decides she’s not interested in doing anything other than lying down on her sofa. By the end of each story you find yourself in another world altogether.
Gifted | Suzumi Suzuki | $27.99 | Scribe
Framed around a dying mother, and the sex work industry and its ensuing politics in Tokyo, our protagonist is coming to terms with a complicated relationship with her mother, dead friends, and an overwhelming and general sense of ennui. This is a book that you’ll knock out in an afternoon, but the mood will stay with you for weeks.
-
Lexie
Goodnight Tokyo | Atsuhiro Yoshida | $32.99 | Allen & Unwin
Matsui guides his taxi around the late night streets of Tokyo. Seen through the eyes of a cast of colourful characters, Goodnight Tokyo takes the reader around Tokyo after dark, when the city’s eccentrics and insomniacs emerge.
Yeonnam-Dong’s Smiley
Laundromat | Kim Jiyun | $32.99 | Hachette
A haven of tranquillity, the Yeonnam-dong Smiley Laundromat is a place where the stories of ordinary residents unfold, and before long the laundromat’s regulars team up to solve a mystery.
Portraits of Drowning |
Madeleine Dale | $24.99 | UQP
Dale takes us through water as the lifeblood of our ecosystems, as well as our imaginations. Dale energises romance and tragedy, troubles history and myth, and invites readers to embrace a poetics of drowning.
Rock Flight | Hasib Hourani | $27.00 | Giramondo
Paper Boat | Margaret Atwood | $55.00 | Random House
Margaret Atwood, who has fundamentally shaped contemporary literary landscapes, now gives voice through poems to remarkably drawn characters who have something to say about what it means to live in our world.
Iris | Laura Watkinson | $41.99 | Fantagraphics
I’ve read this collection three times, and each time I feel like Hourani is doing something different. Based around suffocation and inherited dispossession, rock flight is a heartbreaking explanation and interpretation of Palestine under occupation. Set between Australia and Palestine, we are shown experiences of extreme brutality alongside the mundanity of human events such as having tonsillitis.
San Luis | Justin Lowe | $21.95 | Puncher & Wattmann
- Lexie
Iris is one of the earliest graphic novels produced in the Netherlands, newly translated into English and published in all its 1960s psychedelic glory. Despite being written 60 years ago, the anti-capitalist, dystopian messages of Iris remain pertinent and poignant: a young woman Iris, is catapulted into fame but her stardom comes at a cost.
Kangaroo Stew | Zac James | $24.99 | Magabala David’s family think he’s come home for the anniversary of his Dad’s death. He’s got another agenda: brokering a deal with a mining company to dig up sacred land and get them all out of poverty forever. An important contribution to contemporary Aboriginal theatre from Wonguktha, Yamaji, and Murri theatre-maker Zac James.
A set of poems that is wistful, nostalgic, and full of remembrances and heartaches. Lowe probes a lifetime of uncertainties in a collection of veils, partly lifted or shifting in the breeze, providing glimpses of things perhaps not fully apprehended.
- Lewis
Best of Australian Poems 2024 | Kate Lilley | $34.99 | Puncher and Wattman Best of Australian Poems is an annual anthology that aims to create a poetic snapshot and barometer of the year that’s been. Capturing the richness and diversity of Australian poetry, the series explores how poetic responses to the contemporary moment develop with each passing year.
SLUTS! | ed. Michelle Tea | $32.99 | Random House
An arresting anthology of writing that explores what it means to be sexually promiscuous. SLUTS engages an impressive catalogue of minds to explore the nature of desire and its cultural consequences; its capacity as insult, badge of honour, identity, and state of mind.
A Phone Call Away | Rich Douek | $35.00 | Simon & Schuster
A family’s tragic loss of their six-yearold daughter leads to financial gain through a reality show and worldwide recognition. However, the reality of life sets in as their second child goes missing--can they find her in time?
A compelling mystery told in a unique graphic novel format.
FEBRUARY BOOK OF THE MONTH
Your Utopia | Bora Chung | $27.99 | Scribe | Lexie’s Review
I have never wanted to know what goes on in an author’s mind more than when I was reading this book. Starting off with humour and moving into the almost philosophical with a sense of creepy sci-fi, despite the disjointed feeling of the beginning the stories interconnect to show the evolution of humankind. From the overreliance of machines, projections about the future of humanity, and the belief in the perseverance of nature, the strength of these stories is not in the individual but the cohesive view of humankind. From the quest of immortality to recent protests in Korea, Your Utopia is both a looking glass into the future and filled with hope.
MARCH BOOK OF THE MONTH
The Extinction of Irena Rey | Jennifer Croft | $35.00 | Scribe | Lexie’s Review
Sometimes you read a book so perfect that you wish every other book in the world was like it. It was so much fun to watch a translator…. mimic? Ape? Mock? The art of translating, and watch characters battle it out in the most meta way I’ve seen in a long time. Touching on obsession, the power of authors, the impending doom of climate change, sex, and the importance of mushrooms in that order, The Extinction of Irena Rey was delightfully intelligent and tongue in cheek.
APRIL BOOK OF THE MONTH
Thunderhead | Miranda Darling | $29.99 | Scribe | Steph’s Review
Thunderhead just kept getting better and better (yes, even though it was only 140 pages and set across just one day)! Somewhere between a fever dream and a night with way too much wine, reading this novel was a surreal experience. Being in the mind of Winona, in her stream of consciousness as she plots a novel, goes about a fairly standard Stepford wife-style domestic routine and writes lots of lists, was addictive. She makes some incredibly shrewd observations about motherhood and wifedom (parallels to Anna Funder’s Wifedom are totally fitting here, as are comparisons to Larraín’s Spencer film), and when the title Thunderhead was finally made sense of at the end, I was completely satisfied by this novel.
MAY BOOK OF THE MONTH
Ghost Cities | Siang Lu | $32.99 | UQP | Lexie’s Review
Considering the types of books I normally read, I didn’t quite expect Siang Lu to possibly become my favourite Australian author. Instead, every time I pick up one of his books I want to go to Lemon Grove and absolutely gorge myself on pan fried buns, and Ghost Cities was no exception. Blending satire and over the top characters while discussing the irritations and imperfections of the English language, dropping easter eggs and clues throughout the entire book, and deftly dealing with race and our concept of belonging while inserting puns about steam buns, Ghost Cities is a book that will make you consider our concept of politics and what we expect from our leaders while also making you snort laugh.
JUNE BOOK OF THE MONTH
Psykhe | Kate Forsyth | $34.99 | Penguin | Steph’s Review
I was admittedly very late to the whole mythology craze, but have embraced it wholeheartedly and filled my shelves with guides, encyclopaedias and, of course, mythological retellings like this one! Despite this obsession, and my new familiarity with the story of Psykhe, there is nothing quite like Forsyth’s work. Her spin on this classic tale is vivid, compelling, compassionate, and most of all, utterly original. We follow a young Psykhe from quiet child to passionate woman as she faces scorn, admiration, a very messy romance, an even messier incident with Venus and a trip to the Underworld. There is everything a good story needs, with the added bonus of some Forsyth flair! I’m so excited that this is our book of the month (and a shout out to the cover designer too).
A Language of Limbs | Dylin Hardcastle | $34.99 | Macmillan | Leona’s Review
Dylin Hardcastle’s charged third novel follows two Sapphic young women as they navigate the pyretic 1970s in Australia. On utterly different paths, one towards an openly queer life, the other away from one, these two women run concentric circles around each other, at times only spitting distance apart. This novel is full to the brim with heart and intention, spanning over three decades of queer passion, mentorship, and culture. Hardcastle doesn’t shy away from stretching the form of the novel, finding, losing, and remaking it in moments of striking imagery.
AUGUST BOOK OF THE MONTH
mark the dawn | Jazz Money | $24.99 | UQP | Leona’s Review
Wiradjuri poet Jazz Money rises to the moment, or is the moment created by their rising? mark the dawn, their second poetry collection, celebrates gathering, and community, and living in truth and beauty and terror. This suite of poems sets land, sea, and sky ablaze with life, thinking through and finding intense joy in living queer and Wiradjuri (hi)stories. Money’s words are abundant and arresting with unrelenting momentum. A fierce work of Wiradjuri literature.
SEPTEMBER BOOK OF THE MONTH
The Unicorn Woman | Gayl Jones | $32.99 | Hachette | Lexie’s Review
Sometimes you read a book and know that only one author was capable of writing it; such is the case with The Unicorn Woman. A woman with a horn growing out of her head, the Unicorn Woman is both a subject of obsession and a literal emblem of what our main character Buddy wants in life. Written melodically with a delightful rhythm that almost feels hypnotic at times, we move between reading about his experiences immediately after the war, contrasting the fight against the Germans as American citizens with the reality of the life of Black soldiers back home. It may be hard to believe that writing about the post-war Jim Crow south could be subtle, but Jones is incredibly controlled and restrained throughout. Following Buddy’s relationships with women in his world and his attempts to attain the unattainable, Jones asks us to question what point do we sacrifice the things straight in front of us for what we want but can’t have.
OCTOBER BOOK OF THE MONTH
Our Evenings | Alan Hollinghurst | $34.99 | Picador | Robert’s Review
It’s England in the mid-1960s and 13-year-old David Win, the mixed-race son of a struggling single mother, is awarded a scholarship to an elite boy’s school.He will be welcomed into the country home of his wealthy sponsors and thrown into the path of their own 13-year-old son Giles. Over the next 50 years David (who will go on to be a gifted actor), will drift in and out of their orbits; his struggles with society, racism, class, love and sexuality are in stark and distressing opposition to Giles’ sense of privilege and aggressive political aspirations. Very few get into the English mind-set; whether walking beside the struggling artist or sitting, brandy in hand, in a lavish London townhouse quite like Hollinghurst. Poignant, thoughtful, provocative and thoroughly enjoyable.
NOVEMBER BOOK OF THE MONTH
The Coin | Yasmin Zaher | $24.99 | Allen & Unwin | Steph’s Review
In Zaher’s debut novel The Coin, a Palestinian woman moves to New York to work as an English teacher in a school of marginalised young people. This is a clever, somewhat surreal and trippy critique of capitalism, a novel about obsession, cleanliness and queerness, and a vital story of oppression, colonialism and racism. Yes… it tackles of that in this slim volume that had be captivated from start to finish. Birken bags, trust funds and Korean skin care regimes are only the surface of this deep, utterly original and moving work which details one woman’s unravelling. I’m not entirely sure what to compare this too, but it reminded me at times of Thunderhead, My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Minor Detail.
The Ledge | Christian White | $34.99 | Affirm Press
When human remains are discovered in a forest, a group of old friends starts to panic. A long-held secret is about to be uncovered. Past and present run breathlessly parallel in White’s mind- and timebending new novel.
A Case of Matricide | Graeme Macrae Brunet | $34.99 | Text
In a French town, a stranger stalks the streets; an elderly woman believes her son is planning to do away with her; a prominent manufacturer drops dead. Inspector Gorski mulls over the connections between these events, while grappling with his own demons.
The Dream | Iain Ryan | $34.99 | Ultimo Press
As the glittering façade of the Gold Coast crumbles during the 1982 Commonwealth Games, Detective Bruno Karras, Investigator Amy Owens, and Mike Nichols uncover a sinister plot that threatens to consume them.
We Solve Murders | Richard Osman | $34.99 | Penguin
Osman is undeniably a crime reader’s delight! We Solve Murders jets readers from pub quizzes in small town England to exclusive resorts on volcanic islands, via the baking South Carolina sun and opulent Mayfair dining rooms with a ridiculous murder (sharks? speedboats?) and a decent chuckle-a-minute. Osman’s recipe is now perfected — buoyant, sharply observed, and satisfyingly sweet.
Everywhere We Look | Martine Kropkowski | $34.99 | Ultimo Press
After a tragic incident splinters their friendship, three women travel to regional Marcoy to reconnect. But when they witness a young girl being coerced into a car, they are forced to reckon with the trauma that’s kept them apart.
Jasper Cliff | Josh Kemp | $34.99 | Fremantle Press
When Toby vanishes, his brother Lachlan retraces his movements to a town called Jasper Cliff. At the town’s pub, Lachlan learns that his brother is one of many to have gone missing in pursuit of the Rift, a hole in the ravine. What secrets do these hills hold?
- Ben
How Can I Help You | Laura Sims | $22.99 | NewSouth
No one knows Margo. Her colleagues at the library only know her as middle-aged and congenial. They have no reason to suspect that she is a former nurse with a trail of deaths in her wake. Patricia, a new librarian, notices Margo’s sinister edge and digs deeper.
The Boyfriend | Freida McFadden | $34.99 | Random House
Sydney’s new boyfriend is the dream man, but she can’t shake the feeling that he isn’t as he seems. Then, the prime suspect in a string of murders is revealed to be a man who dates his victims before he kills them. Can Sydney get to the truth?
The Hitwoman’s Guide to Reducing Household Debt | Mark Mupotsa-Russell | $24.99 | Affirm Press
Mupotsa-Russell’s debut novel has it all – action, suspense, heartbreaking emotion and, above all, humour. Set in Melbourne’s Dandenong Ranges, the novel follows Olivia, ex-hitwoman, on a quest of bloody vengeance against the people who killed her daughter. So begins our tale of elaborate murders, as Olivia plots to bring down the men who wronged her. Funny, witty and fastpaced, I loved it! - Lewis
Chinese Phantom | Christoph Giesen, Philipp Grüll, Frederik Obermaier & Bastian Obermayer | $36.99 | Scribe
Karl Lee plays a key role in the secret struggle between the world powers, supplying dictators with weapons. This is a gripping real-life thriller following four authors’ attempt to uncover the truth.
The Last Gifts of the Universe | Riley
August | $32.99 | Random House
A profoundly moving and heartfelt. The novel follows Scout, an archeologist, Kieran, her brother, and Pumpkin, the cat, on a ship in deep space, exploring the ruins of dead civilisations among the stars, on deserted planets and across the universe! The Last Gifts of the Universe tells of grief and loss in a very personal and powerful way. I loved it! - Lewis
Polostan | Neal
Stephenson | $34.99 | Harper Collins
Born in the American West to a clan of cowboy anarchists, Dawn finds herself in the crosshairs of authorities and heads to Russia, where she is groomed as a spy by the organisation that later becomes the KGB. The the first installment in a monumental new series.
The Stardust Grail | Yume Kitasei | $39.99 | Harper Collins
Maya Hoshimoto is a thief, or at least she used to be. Not that anyone knows that. Now applying her specific set of skills working in anthropology, she’s having haunting visions of the future. This story balances high concept sci-fi elements with strong anti-colonist themes and meaningful characters in a beautiful way. Heists, alien species, strange new worlds and epic galactic quests, this book has it all and it was such a fun ride. - Ruby
Toward Eternity | Anton Hur | $34.99 | Harper Collins
In a near-future world, nanites are able to heal human cells, and leave them virtually immortal. Yonghun, a researcher, teaches an AI how to understand poetry; Dr. Beeko, who holds the nanite patent, transfers its consciousness into an android body. A brilliant, haunting speculative novel from a bestselling translator that sets out to answer the question: What does it mean to be human?
Run | Blake Crouch | $34.99 | Macmillan
A rash of murders swept the country. Emboldened, the killers began to mobilise countrywide, and the murders increased tenfold. After the President addressed the nation, calling for peace, the power went out. Tonight, they’re broadcasting the names of those to be killed - will name be among them?
Buried Deep | Naomi Novik | $34.99 | Random House
From the magical halls of the Scholomance trilogy, through the realms next door to Spinning Silver and Uprooted, and the dragon-filled Temeraire series, this stunning collection takes us from fairy tale to fantasy to mystery, as we travel through Novik’s most beloved stories.
The Queen | Nick Cutter | $34.99 | Hachette Maggie’s BFF, Charity, went missing a month ago, after a traumatic event at a party made her the talk of her high school. One day Maggie awakens to a package at her door. It’s a brand new iPhone, with only one number in it – Charity has arranged a special treasure hunt for Maggie, and she’s going to learn that she doesn’t know her best friend quite as well as she thought… cue a skin-crawling, gut-churning, brutally visceral tale of body horror from one of my favourite modern horror authors. Warning: if you’re even remotely weird about bugs, I’d think twice about picking this one up… - Connor
Cursed Under London | Gabby Hutchinson Crouch | $34.99 | Allen & Unwin
Fang awakes from his death to discover he is not human anymore; he’s also not vampire, zombie, werewolf or any of the other beings of Upper and Deep London. Seeking a way to reverse the spell, he stumbles upon someone who has the same affliction: an intoxicating Frenchman called Lazare de QuitteBeuf.
Travelling to Tomorrow | Yves Rees | $34.99 | NewSouth Books
A celebrity decorator, a single mother, a Christian nudist. A century ago, ten Australian women headed across the Pacific to make their fortune and shaped our history!
Three Wild Dogs | Markus Zusak | $36.99 | Macmillan
What happens when the Zusaks open their family home to three big, wild, pound-hardened dogs? The answer: chaos. Street fights, park fights, property trashing, injuries, stomach pumping, the occasional police visit, and a whole lotta heart.
Long Yarn Short | Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts | $36.99 | UQP
At 10, Turnbull-Roberts was stolen from her family and later fled the system to reconnect with kin and country. This is a powerful call to action and vital work of truth-telling.
Swimming Sydney | Chris Baker | $32.99 | NewSouth Books
Baker has managed to pace his dive into the city’s watery history to perfection. Through 52 swims, one for every week, Chris peels back the layers of iconic beaches, lap pools, bushland lakes, and harbour enclosures, reflecting on what water means to the diverse and colourful inhabitants of this immensely swimmable city. This book is generous, lyrical, and wryly observant. - Leona
A Political Memoir | Robert Manne | $59.99 | Black Inc
Manne is one of Australia’s most profound political analysts. His memoir traces his intellectual roots, revealing how his personal context informed the questions he would spend his life trying to answer.
Cactus Pear for my Beloved | Samah Sabawi | $36.99 | Penguin
Sabawi shares the story of her parents, starting in British-ruled-Palestine and landing in Redland Bay, QLD. This memior is filled with love for land, history and peoples.
A Bit On The Side | Virginia Trioli | $36.99 | Macmillan
Trioli knows that enduring joys of life are often found in the small moments. This is her ode to joy, filled with wisdom, stories, memories and recipes, told with a wicked sense of humour.
Australian Gospel | Lech Blaine | $36.99 | Black Inc
The Blaine’s are foster parents to three of the Shelley’s children, and these families could not be more different. This is the true story of Blaine’s family, a stranger-than-fiction tale that is heartbreaking, hilarious and altogether astonishing.
Uses for Obsession | Ben Shewry | $34.99 | Murdoch Books
A memoir of both a restaurant and its head chef, this is a beautifully creative reflection on the hospitality world. Known for his restaurant Attica, Shrewry dives into his childhood influences, his culinary obsessions and his creative, kind and heartfelt approach to managing a restaurant. His indelible creativity shines through with all the charming quirks you would envision a famous chef to have.
Max Dupain | Helen Ennis | $55.00 | Harper Collins
Ennis pens the first biography of Dupain, the iconic photographer behind many images that shape our national mythos. Ennis reveals a driven artist with a ferocious relationship to his work and explores masculinity, love, the body, war, and nature.
- Angus
Holding the Line | Barbara Kingsolver | $32.99 | Allen & Unwin
Summer, 1983: Kingsolver followed the Phelps Dodge mine strike, paying attention to their wives, sisters, and daughters as they fought to keep their families from destitution.
My Roman Year | Andre Aciman | $34.99 | Allen & Unwin
This memoir of Aciman’s youth, set against the backdrop of 1960s Rome and Paris, is a sensational read. Part family drama, part coming-of-age story, it explores the period when he had to become the nominal head of his immediate family; interpreter, protector and guide. Aciman has a way of crafting images with words, and the sights, streets and smells of both Paris and Rome come to life under his hand. - Robert
Sonny Boy | Al Pacino | $55.00 | Random House
This is Al Pacino’s story - the great roles, the essential collaborations, and the important relationships; the vexed marriage between creativity and commerce; and above all, the spirit of love and purpose.
Don’t Look Back, You’ll Trip
Over | Michael Caine | $34.99 | Hachette
Hollywood screen legend Michael Caine brings his wit, insight and wisdom to answer questions about every aspect of his long life and career. This is a whole-souled book from a beloved actor.
Portrait of an Art Dealer |
Michael Findlay | $65.00 | Peribo
Findlay launched his career surrounded by the most exciting figures in the art world. Here, he traces his childhood in Scotland to his arrival in the US, offering fascinating recollections of his time in Downtown New York.
Didion & Babitz | Lili Anolik | $45.00 | Bloomsbury
A selection of intimate, diarylike letters between Babitz and her fellow literary titan, Joan Didion, underpin this outrageously provocative and profoundly moving work exploring their complicated relationship.
My Animals and Other Animals | Bill Bailey | $34.99 | Hachette
You may know Bailey for his oddball stand-up comedy, or from his legendary turn as Manny in Black Books. However, you probably don’t know that he is a part-time zookeeper. This marvellous memoir tells of Bailey’s life and the animals who have shared it – from a terrier named Rocky to a giant chicken named Kid Creole, via parrots, llamas, frogs and armadillos. A warm, funny recounting of a life well lived. - Connor
On James Baldwin | Colm Toibin | $32.95 | Wiley
Tóibín first read James Baldwin just after turning eighteen. He was searching for literature that would offer illumination on his own upbringing; and in Baldwin, Tóibín found a writer who would be a lifelong companion and exemplar.
Memories of Distant Mountains | Orhan Pamuk | $39.99 | Penguin
This book combines Pamuk’s daily obersvations and drawing from many years of writing in notebooks into one volume. He writes about his travels, his family, his writing, and his complex relationship with his home country of Turkey.
The Unfinished Harauld Hughes | Richard Ayoade | $32.99 | Allen & Unwin
Ayoade chanced upon a Harauld Hughes tome in a second-hand bookshop and embarked on a documentary to understand the unfathomable collapse of Hughes’s final film; this is that story.
Australia in 100 Words | Amanda Laugesen | $32.99 | NewSouth Books
From Indigenous words that have entered common parlance to the crustiest bogan lingo, this is a unique and fascinating cultural history of Australia. A brilliant concept, thoroughly researched and perfectly executed, it explores how Australian English is a unique cultural and historical touchstone. - Connor
Charles Todd’s Magnificent Obsession | David Duffy | $34.99 | Allen & Unwin
This is the extraordinary story of the building of the Overland Telegraph. Three teams of workers crossed deserts, mountains, and rivers in flood, following rough maps. Drawing on original letters and journals, Dufty has uncovered never-beforepublished details about this amazing project.
A
Matter of Taste | Lauren Samuelsson | $39.99 | Monash University
The Australian Women’s Weekly has long been Australia’s highest-selling women’s magazine, but despite being filled with recipes, it has been widely overlooked in histories of Australian food. Samuelsson recentres the Weekly’s place in Australian food culture.
He Went Back For His Hat | Justice Michael Lee | $36.99 | MUP
‘Having escaped the lions’ den, Mr Lehrmann made the mistake of going back for his hat.’ With this judgement, Justice Lee changed the legal landscape for sexual assault prosecution matters. His trauma-informed approach understood the complicated nature of recollections for assault victims, and ultimately became a masterclass of legal dissection.
Naku Dharuk | Clare Wright | $45.00 | Text
Publishing
The Naku Dharuk (Yirrkala Bark Petitions) created by the Yolŋu of northeast Arnhem Land are founding documents in the land rights movement and crucial to our democracy. Here, Wright chronicles their history with the vivid detail and masterful storytelling we have come to expect of her! The final book in her incredible historical trilogy. - Steph
Mean Streak | Rick Morton | $36.99 | Harper Collins Robodebt was a new debt-creation system that was used to illegally pursue welfare recipients for fake debt. This is a gripping and horrifying account of how our government turned on its most vulnerable citizens.
Murriyang: Song of Time | Stan Grant | $39.99 | Simon & Schuster
When Stan Grant looked down the barrel of the camera, his eyes red with love and grief, and stated his departure from news media, he spoke of Yindyamarra, a Wiradjuri way of being –quiet, respectful, kind, and forgiving. In this hotly anticipated new book, the first to press from Anita Heiss’s new imprint, Yindyamarra is distilled and expressed in small miraculous exhalations of thought. Don’t pick this up expecting hot takes on the ABC, global crises and the failed Referendum, pick this up expecting grace, art, family and Country. Deeply raw and introspective yet culturally and cosmologically universal. - Ben
The Wild Reciter | Peter Kirkpatrick | $34.99 | MUP
Just over a century ago poetry was all the rage. Yet this communal experience has now largely disappeared. Kirkpatrick explores the shifting relationships between poetry and popular culture.
Australia at the Movies | David Stratton | $39.99 | Allen & Unwin
Our best-loved film critic reviews (almost) every feature film from the past three decades in the ultimate guide to modern Australian cinema. From Priscilla to The Dry, from The Big Steal toThe Drover’s Wife, he tells us why they’re worth watching.
The Art of Not Eating | Jessica Hamel-Akré | $34.99 | Murdoch
Hamel-Akré dives deeply into the 18-century origins of both today’s diet culture and her own troubled relationship with wanting. Blending history and memoir, this work is vital and unflinching.
The Roads To Rome | Catherine Fletcher | $36.99 | Simon & Schuster
Brimming with life and drama, this is the first book to explore two thousand years of European history through one of the most important imperial networks ever built - the roads leading to Rome.
Her Secret Service | Claire Hubbard-Hall | $36.99 | Hachette
Since the inception of the Secret Service Bureau back in 1909, women have worked at the very heart of British secret intelligence. Drawing on private and previously-classified documents, historian Hubbard-Hall brings their gripping true stories to life.
Odyssey | Stephen Fry | $36.99 | Penguin
From the first line, there is something uniquely scrumptious about the way Fry writes; you can hear his intonations in every phrase and see his wryly smirk in every paragraph. He has the unique ability to blend the ancient with the contemporary, giving new life to the tale of Ulysses’ journey back to Ithaca after the Trojan War. All of the old cast of characters are here, served up in the most entertaining, innovative and joyous way.
- Lexie
Paris in Ruins | Sebastian Smee | $34.99 | Text
Sebastian Smee shows how a beloved art form arose as a complex reaction to an age of violence and war. This is a gripping account of how political turmoil in Paris from 1870-1871 gave rise to Impressionism.
This Earthly Globe | Andrea di Robilant | $34.99 | Murdoch Autumn, 1550: an anonymously authored volume containing a wealth of geographical information new to Europeans was published in Venice. This is the story of the Venetian who helped to map the World during the Renaissance.
Noble Fragments | Michael Visontay | $36.99 | Scribe
One hundred years ago, Wells, broke up the world’s greatest book, the Gutenberg Bible, and sold it off its pages. This is the story of an Australian man’s hunt for those fragments and his family’s debt to an act of vandalism.
Baltic Souls | Jan Brokken | $36.99 | Scribe
Brokken’s travelling journey through Baltic history and culture sees us encounter well-known and forgotten personalities, and shows us cruelty and violence, but also tenderness and solidarity in a people united across borders.
The Sistine Chapel | Lucinda Byatt | $36.99 | Wiley
Art historian and restorer Forcellino tells the remarkable story of the Sistine Chapel, bringing his unique combination of knowledge and skills to bear on the conditions that led to its creation.
Wonders in the Deep | Mensun Bound & Mark Frary | $49.99 | Simon & Schuster
The sea has always been fascinating to me, from its wildlife (especially jellyfish) to stories of pirates and adventure. Bound and Frary give us a maritime history of the world, from 3000 BCE to now, through the lens of underwater archaeology, each story told through some ancient relic found on the seafloor. Utterly engrossing! - Lewis
